Apple TV universal search received a major update this week, expanding to 10 new apps in the United States. On the fourth-generation Apple TV, users can now search for movies and TV shows on Apple Music, Animal Planet GO, Crunchyroll, CuriosityStream, Investigation Discovery GO, Science Channel GO, TBS, TNT, TLC GO, and Tribeca Shortlist.
For those unfamiliar with universal search, it's a feature that allows users to conduct Siri voice searches or text-based searches to find TV and movie content across a wide range of channels. At launch, universal search only supported a few channels, but Apple has been rapidly expanding the feature to encompass additional channels.
Apple TV universal search is now available for a wider number of apps in the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the U.K., but the feature is limited to iTunes and Netflix in France, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden. In some other countries and regions, only movies in iTunes are supported.
Meanwhile, in Germany, users can now search for episodes on Galileo.
Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below.
Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports.
In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
Monday December 8, 2025 4:54 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is actively testing under-screen Face ID for next year's iPhone 18 Pro models using a special "spliced micro-transparent glass" window built into the display, claims a Chinese leaker.
According to "Smart Pikachu," a Weibo account that has previously shared accurate supply-chain details on Chinese Android hardware, Apple is testing the special glass as a way to let the TrueDepth...
Monday December 8, 2025 10:18 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the second release candidate version of iOS 26.2 to developers and public beta testers, with the software coming one week after Apple seeded the first RC. The release candidate represents the final version iOS 26.2 that will be provided to the public if no further bugs are found.
Registered developers and public beta testers can download the betas from the Settings app on...
Monday December 1, 2025 2:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
Monday December 8, 2025 9:23 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's chipmaking chief Johny Srouji has reportedly indicated that he plans to continue working for the company for the foreseeable future.
"I love my team, and I love my job at Apple, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon," said Srouji, in a memo obtained by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Here is Srouji's full memo, as shared by Bloomberg:I know you've been reading all kind of rumors and...
Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you.
Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Apple's senior vice president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji could be the next leading executive to leave the company amid an alarming exodus of leading employees, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
Srouji apparently recently told CEO Tim Cook that he is "seriously considering leaving" in the near future. He intends to join another company if he departs. Srouji leads Apple's chip design ...
Monday December 8, 2025 11:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple and Google are teaming up to make it easier for users to switch between iPhone and Android smartphones, according to 9to5Google. There is a new Android Canary build available today that simplifies data transfer between two smartphones, and Apple is going to implement the functionality in an upcoming iOS 26 beta.
Apple already has a Move to iOS app for transferring data from an Android...
Friday December 5, 2025 10:08 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Intel is expected to begin supplying some Mac and iPad chips in a few years, and the latest rumor claims the partnership might extend to the iPhone.
In a research note with investment firm GF Securities this week, obtained by MacRumors, analyst Jeff Pu said he and his colleagues "now expect" Intel to reach a supply deal with Apple for at least some non-pro iPhone chips starting in 2028....
I applaud their efforts to bring on as many services as possible. But it's so rough outside of the US, and I still wish we could have some form of universal search for local stuff (thinking Plex..)
so, if I have Home Videos stored on my MacBook's iTunes I cannot easily get to them with the new AppleTV?
with ATV 3rd gen I think I go through My Computer and select the home sharing iTunes and can see music, tv, movies, Home Movies stored on that computer/iTunes.
Looks like someone else jumped in on my behalf but no, I didn't phrase this well. I use the home sharing feature on my 4th generation Apple TVs and it works well, I'm just disappointed that universal search support has never been added for this type of content. The rationale I've seen used is that the search is server side so does not have an index of my local content but this could easily be extended to search both server and local then reconcile both result sets together.
Universal Search: the easiest way to find crap you don't want to see on channels you don't watch.®
A stupid comment from someone who think they are being "witty." Because everyone searches for stuff they don't want found. [doublepost=1481730969][/doublepost]I like the idea of the TV App, if for no other reason than the single sign on. But I always found it ridiculous that the ATV never had the ability to automatically show you your recently watched shows/movies. It's annoying to watch something and then after you leave it, you have to scroll through an entire list just to find what I was recently watching.
For example I have 500 Movies and probably 100 TV Shows, if I'm watching X-Men and leave off, I have to scroll through a list of 500 movies to get to the X-Men before I resume and scrolling using the ATV remote flaky.
Granted I can tell Siri to find X-men, but again a pointless Step. I just want to launch my purchased Movie or TV Shows thing and see a recently watched or up next (if I'm watching a TV Series) option at the top. The idea that they have to create this whole convoluted "uniformed" TV app thing just to get that one simple feature is asinine. I really hate the "new" Apple and would leave in a heart beat but Windows is terrible and I'm locked into stupid iTunes.
